56 THE HISTORY OE THE ORDER OF [book iv.

more, and earth too waxed scarce, of which refugethey were finally deprived, and it consumed theirsmall residue of force. A variety of contrivances totake ours captive encountered an intrepidity thatmade them all fail. But our most signal heroeswent dropping; Medrano’s serjeant was killed;Miranda declared longer defence impossible, andengaged Bailiff Eguaras and Governor Broglia toconvene a council-of-war. There was Medranoinstructed to relate the whole to the grand master,and that they every minute expected to be blownup with the rest of the fortress, which leads imme-diately to the conquest of the whole island; andthen Toledo’s coming would be useless. Theonly way to save the order’s best nerve, “ so manyof its most valuable troops, is instantly to callinto Borgo the survivors, where they perhaps mayhold out until the Spanish army’s arrival.’’ Me-drano obeying, got with some difficulty to Borgo,and secretly, in the grand master’s own pri-vate room, told him and his council the entireunhappy verity. Whence after profound consul-tation he received this answer: “ We know verywell that in a mere military point of view St.Elmo is untenable; but our oath and profession isfreely to sacrifice our lives for Christendom. Weare absolutely obliged to undergo a certain and

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